


Askew

by mapcake



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27170990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapcake/pseuds/mapcake
Summary: Zevran spends his first night with the Warden getting to know her, and is pulled into her charms.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Female Mahariel
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	Askew

The Warden looks down at him, with not a single speck of blood on her leather armour, and spares him. She cuts the ropes binding his wrists and says, “Come along then, Zevran,” and turns her back to him as she leaves. Her fellow Warden sputters, the feathered apostate scoffs, the imposing Qunari voices his concerns, and even Zevran stares after her in disbelief.

The Warden only looks over her shoulder with a smile, and says, “Samahl will stop him if he does anything rash.” The great mabari at her side eyes him—calmly, evenly—and Zevran’s throat is suddenly dry, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Yes, he had wanted to die today, but not at the jaws of a beast incapable of inflicting a quick, clean kill. So he rises, forcing the tremble out of his knees, and affects a charmed grin as he does as the Warden requests, and comes along.

Later, they share a pleasant dinner. Wynne heals his injuries despite her distrust, and the Warden, Lyra, and Leliana chat with him about the road, his preferred meals while travelling, the variety of services he is prepared to offer them (this, he says with a suggestive smoulder that slides right off of them, like water on an oil-slicked coat). He does not learn much of substance from either of them, and gives up little of himself, but he relishes playing this game with two women who are clearly adept at it. After, when everyone breaks to clean up for the night, Zevran wonders how his own night will go. He has nothing save for the clothes and daggers on his back, and he doubts that the party carries extra supplies for potential strays slash prisoners. Lyra notices his idleness, and beckons him over to where she is setting up a tent.

“Help me,” she says, gesturing to the other poles lying on the ground.

“Putting me to work already, dear Warden?”

“Of course. You are one of us, now. You must pull your weight as well.” She smiles kindly, then goes back to work staking out the poles. The plain way in which say says, "one of us,” sticks hard in his mind. Earlier today, he was trying to kill her, and while he did pledge his loyalty to her, words are cheap—especially his. For Lyra to already consider him one of hers… he would think her a fool, if she had not gently threatened to have him mauled. Sure enough, Zevran looks up to find her mabari settled nearby, resting with his head on his paws, watching him. No, she is as sharp as any blade, but sheathed by an unassuming statue and soft smiles, and she is all the more dangerous for it.

Zevran flirts with her shamelessly as they work, complimenting the freckles on her tan skin, the warm, earthy tone of her irises, the elegant, forest green vallaslin swirling across her face, and she entertains his attention with girlish giggles and twinkling eyes. When they are done setting up the tent, as well as two others, he follows as she shows him where they store the cookware, how to use and refill the waterskins, where they keep the emergency potions. If he were to destroy or steal any of these things, he would cripple their party for weeks. He feels the weight of the trust she has placed on him grow with every word she speaks, and it unsettles him—as he is sure it is meant to. He distracts himself with the lilting melody of her voice, and her delicious little accent that makes his belly warm every time she curls her Rs. Lyra concludes the tour back at the central fire, and says, “And until we get another tent and bedroll, you can sleep with me.”

Alistair, who had been tending the fire, jerks his head up. “What? No. Lyra, that’s insane!” Silently, Zevran is inclined to agree.

Lyra cocks her head. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because he tried to _kill you_ six hours ago!”

“Yes, but none of _you_ will sleep with him, and I will not let him sleep on the ground under the open sky.”

“I—but that’s still—insane! He could slit your throat in the middle of the night!”

“And ruin such a lovely, artful throat?” Zevran gasps, affronted. “I could never.”

“You tried to _six hours ago_!”

“Ah, but that was before I was swept up in our Warden’s bewitching company. How could I hurt a woman so enthralling, so resplendent? The very thought appalls me.”

Lyra giggles, flushing at his words, and Alistair splutters, trying and failing to start a sentence four times, before Lyra reaches up to pat his cheek (and she is so endearingly tiny that she must pop onto her toes to do so). Alistair’s jaw shuts so hard and fast that his teeth click.

“I appreciate the concern, Alistair, but I’ll be fine,” says Lyra soothingly. The man goes red all the way up to the tips of his ears. Lyra drops her hand after an appropriate, friendly moment, but Alistair swallows hard, as if he is parched. Zevran does not even bother to fight the sly grin on his face. When Alistair notices, he gets impossibly redder, and turns away promptly to march stiffly to his tent—but not before Zevran catches him bringing his own hand to his cheek, laying it reverently over where Lyra’s had been moments ago.

“My, my,” says Zevran, thoroughly impressed. “What a marvel you are, dear Warden.”

Beside him, Lyra hums innocently. She says, “I am taking last watch, so I will sleep early. You may stay up a little later, if you wish.”

“No, I will retire with you. I’m quite tired myself.” It’s the truth. Wynne had healed him, but his body was still sore from travel, and the exertion of the fight. And although observing Lyra has been very interesting, his mind is exhausted, still reeling from the fact that he is alive at all, and still wary of his new captor, despite—or perhaps because of—her placid demeanor.

Inside Lyra’s tent, a thick pile of furs consumes the bulk of the floor space. She places the lamp she had been carrying by the door, drags the furs over so that there is more even space on both sides of the tent, and pats the bed. Then, she begins to take off her armour.

Ah, so she _did_ intend to use his services in this way. Zevran chuckles, and begins to disrobe as well. He will do whatever he must to stay alive, but at least this time, he thinks he will enjoy it. Once he is sufficiently unclothed, he slinks over to Lyra. Her back is to him, and he had not known that her vallaslin extends past her face, but it does, and he stops to admire the design there: an intricate, stylized halla head, with horns curving up to her shoulders, and a snout that dips into her lower back. Lyra must notice his attention, but she very generously does not interrupt him.

After a couple moments, she asks, “What do you know of the Dalish ways?”

“I know that you live off the land, and pledge yourselves to your gods with vallaslin. Beyond that, very little, I’m afraid.”

“Hm. A good start. I am sworn to Ghilan’nain, the goddess of guides and navigation. Vallaslin as extensive as mine is rare, as it is a painful and grueling process, but I was an accomplished hunter valued by the clan, and I bore my first marks perfectly, so they allowed me to have more.” She stretches her arms over her head with a little noise of contentment. The action pulls the hollow halla eyes on her back into a mischievous squint. “My back was so large that it took three days of near constant work, and I was not allowed to eat or sleep, and only allowed to drink twice. By the end of it, I was delirious with pain and exhaustion, and only barely conscious—but I had not made a sound, and the Keeper was very proud.”

“That sounds akin to the torture that we Crows had to endure as children. To train the body to withstand hardship, the guildmasters had said.”

Lyra laughs, looking at him over her shoulder at last. “Perhaps. Religion begets harsh trials, at times. And you?”

“Me?”

“You have marks, too.” She turns more fully towards him, unabashed despite being bare from the waist up. She has vallaslin here, too; the same patterns that had filled the halla head on her back wind up the left side of her belly, and cup the underside of her breast. “Did devotion compel you to bear them, too?”

Zevran chuckles, tearing his gaze away from her to consider his own tattoos. “Nothing so deep, my dear. I simply got them to draw the eye—to aid in seduction.” He gives her a sly smirk, and feels it sharpen at the dusting of pink it brings to her cheeks.

“Ah. Is that why you think I called you here?”

“Is it not?” he purrs, moving closer, tipping her chin up with a gentle finger. Her blush rises, but she does not shy away, and oh, Zevran _likes_ that.

And then—Lyra pats him on the cheek lightly, just like she did with Alistair. He startles, knocked completely off kilter. “No, lethallin, it is not. I do simply want to sleep.” However, unlike with Alistair, her touch lingers, and her thumb sweeps over his curved, black tattoos. “But perhaps in the future… well. Consider me intrigued.”

She slips on a shirt, blows out the lamp, and crawls under the furs—and that’s that. Except Zevran is still kneeling there, his body and his words having failed him, and his skin burns where she touched him. The entrance to the tent rustles, and there is Lyra’s hound, padding quietly into the tent. He spares Zevran a glance, but brushes by him harmlessly to settle at his mistress’s side.

Shaken out of his reverie, a grin grows unbidden on Zevran’s face, wide, excited, delighted.

Consider _him_ intrigued as well.


End file.
